Ariel Schuster, an executive vice president at RKF, has developed a niche bringing together landlords with glassy, vertical Manhattan properties with retail tenants accustomed to the roomy strip malls and big-boxes of the suburbs. Now 36 years old, he is the youngest person ever to become a partner and executive vice president at the retail leasing and investment sales brokerage. Schuster joined Midtown-based RKF in 2001.

His roster of landlord clients includes Related Companies, RFR Realty, The World-Wide Group, Edward J. Minskoff Equities, and The Winter Organization. His retailer clients include Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy, Vineyard Vines, and Pret A Manger. He secured a 30,000-SF space for PetSmart at 632 Broadway. Schuster, who was born in Jerusalem, is responsible for 45 transactions on the behalf of Gap brands, including The Gaps downtown Flagship store at 170 Broadway. To accommodate national big-box retailers in New Yorks narrow awkward spaces, Schuster sometimes gets involved in designing retail features.

He graduated from Tulane University and has a masters from NYU. Schuster was part of the team awarded with the REBNY Retail Deal of the Year in 2010.

-MK